Ramzy Baroud

Coupled with numerous reports of gang rape, outright murder, and the mass burning of villages, the Rohingya have been left defenceless in the face of unspeakable atrocities. Worse still, a recent agreement between Myanmar and Bangladesh will see many of these refugees repatriated, but with absolutely no guarantees for their safety. With no safeguards in place, and with the Rohingya having been stripped of their legal status in Myanmar, going back is as risky an endeavour as fleeing.....

Amjad Yaghi

As of this year, Gazans have been able to go online before heading to the mosque and find out where their favourite Islamic preacher will be leading Friday prayers. The Ministry of Religious Affairs enabled them to do so when it launched the platform Khotaba, which in Arabic means “preachers,” on Jan. 2. The website also allows users to assess the performance of every preacher in the Gaza Strip and post feedback on his sermons....

Siddharthya Roy

Modelled after the Afghan Mujahideen and thereafter the Taliban, a terrorist, in most Western portrayals, is still a madrasa-educated ignoramus and religious hothead from an underdeveloped country who takes up arms to protect his ultra-conservative and theocratic lifestyle. This is at best an ill-informed yardstick with which to gauge potential terrorists and at worst a result of deeply ingrained xenophobia about the “Muslim look.” Facts paint a different picture....

Shohel Mamun and Ashif Islam Shaon

“All the curricula of Islamic education systems are designed with an aim to help madrasa graduates get employed in the Islamic job sector. That is a problem, since this particular job sector is not that big.”...

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

A week in, Isis issued its first manifesto: the Madina [City] Document. In archaic language laden with millenarian references, Isis congratulated the people of Mosul for “these divine victories” and staked out its central promise: Oh people, you have tried all the secular regimes, from the monarchy to the republic to Safavid [Shia] government. You have tried it and been burned by its fires. And here we are now in the reign of the Islamic State and the region of our imam Abu Bakr. And you shall see by the will of Allah the vast difference between a secular government, that oppresses and confiscates the will and energies of its people and erases their dignity, and our rule, which takes the divine word as a path....

Thomas Erdbrink

While discriminatory Islamic divorce and inheritance laws pose problems for individual women, the head scarf is a highly public symbol of a set of personal rules imposed by Iran’s clerical leaders, who decide what people can wear, what music they can listen to and what television programs and movies they get to see. Men are also the subject of clothing laws: They are forbidden to wear shorts in public....

Syeda Hameed

Islam has unflinching regard and respect for women. The Quran, the Hadith, and the Sunnah are imbued with raising the status of women in a brutal, misogynist, patriarchal Arab society. Its most revolutionary act in a society that buried its girl children at birth was to give women property rights....

Basil Hijazi, New Age Islam

The Muslims in the era of the Prophet [peace be upon him] and after him in the era of the companions [Sahaba] were threatened with the sudden violent attack by the forces who used to see Islam with contempt and hostility. So the “defensive war” was immensely necessary at that time. The fight of Islam was defensive and not offensive. It is necessary to understand that sometimes defence wears the dress of offence merely for reasons such as, preventing the obstacles in the preaching of Islam, applying and propagating the principles of humanity, brotherhood, equality among the servants of Allah and social security and deterring the strong from oppressing the weak....

Shlomi Eldar

Israel’s Foreign Ministry used to boast that despite the EU's sweeping support for the Palestinians, Israel had managed to thwart European recognition of Palestine as a state. As the donors met in Brussels, the Slovenian parliament convened to vote on a resolution recognizing a Palestinian state. The vote reflects the sense of hopelessness felt about resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through negotiations. Slovenia is not a central player in the EU, but other states could well reach the same conclusion that it has....

Aykan Erdemir

At the outset of the Afrin operation, the Turkish president issued an unequivocal threat to the opposition not to protest the offensive. “Know that wherever you go out on the streets our security forces are on your necks,” Erdogan said. The Turkish police proved that these were not empty threats by arresting protestors in Istanbul and charging them with “propagandizing for a terrorist organization.”...

The Economist

Arabic is sometimes considered a language family, rather than a single language. Education and writing is in “modern standard” Arabic, but each region has its own distinct spoken variety, and those dialects separated by enough distance are not mutually comprehensible. They differ at every level from grammar to vocabulary to pronunciation....

Lydia Shelly

The accusation that religious garments are a precursor to radicalisation or violent extremism is one that has no grounds in the extensive body of terrorism literature. Respected terrorism experts have found that there are no links between modest clothing and violent extremism or terrorism; indeed, that religion is not a sole or major contributor to violent extremism.....

Muhammad Nawaz Khan

The counter-terrorism phenomenon as observed in the contemporary world today is getting complicated. Hard measures alone are not enough to deal with the threat of terror. Counter-terrorism policies must also include psychological measures designed to lure people away from terror groups. ‘Soft power’ inventiveness is needed to develop more humane methods....

Khalid Baig

For here is the possibility of turning every moment of our life into an act of worship through a change in our intentions. For example, when a believer goes to his place of work with the intention of fulfilling his religious responsibility to provide for his family and earn Halal living, he may be engaged in the same physical activity as the next person but his outlook is very different. And so is his reward! Through this small effort we could really be living for a higher purpose, and at a higher level....

Dr Muhammad Maroof Shah

Religions command us to pray for all or help access/ invite all to the Beauty and Joy one has access to. Prophets, saints and artists are those who take upon themselves the burden of the suffering masses. The Prophet (S.A.W) insisted that we must help a brother (Aren’t strangers also our brothers or who is not our brother according to traditions?) whether he is an oppressor or the oppressed one (by “preventing him from oppressing others.”) The Prophet (S.A.W) keeps night vigils, weeps, prays until feet swell and prostrates for long hours to help suffering people....

Roshan Shah, New Age Islam

Salma was on a train on a winter morning and saw a woman hug her little child close. The girl was very cold, and her mother was trying hard to keep her warm with her Dupatta. Without a second thought Salma took off her shawl and gave it to the woman and insisted they keep it and got a great way to use the YTN card!...

Inquirer.Net

Thus the continued practice of child marriage without any restriction passes on all five counts laid out by Al-Ghazali so as to constitute Mafsadah and these reforms are an essential step towards Maslahah by ensuring these threats are averted and these archetypal Islamic values secured. This is why one of the greatest Caliphs of all time, Umar, like Al-Ghazali, was such a staunch advocate of focusing on the spirit of the law rather than the letter itself. They were fully cognisant of the fact that while the Maqasid are timeless, the rules and practices that facilitate their attainment are not....